


Seemingly Irrelevant

by Callmesalticidae



Series: There is Nothing to Fear [8]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Hogwarts House Sorting, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragons, Gen, Gryffindor Tom Riddle, Wizarding Politics (Harry Potter), Wizengamot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:33:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25187218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callmesalticidae/pseuds/Callmesalticidae
Summary: The Wizengamot has conducted a formal inquiry. There is nothing to fear. (1980)
Series: There is Nothing to Fear [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1087368
Comments: 4
Kudos: 39





	Seemingly Irrelevant

> Experience has shown, and a true philosophy will always show, that a vast, perhaps the larger portion of the truth arises from the seemingly irrelevant.
> 
> Edgar Allan Poe

Albus looked tired, Minerva thought when she entered his office. The headmaster was scarcely more than a hundred years old, but his face was marked by deep lines and he carried himself with an air that suggested that he was only keeping himself upright at his desk through considerable effort. Beside parchment and an assortment of doodads, there were three mugs. One of them was half-full of Pepper-Up Potion. The other two, drained to the dregs, smelled strongly of the same.

“Minerva,” he said, and then he paused, as if he needed to regather his energies in order to say more. “I’m glad that you were able to come.”

She took a breath. “I have a curriculum to revise,” Minerva said.

“I know that, but I need to speak with you.” Albus paused again, then looked away for a moment. “I need to speak with someone.”

“I’m not a part of your secret society.”

“I know that you aren’t,” he replied. “That is why I want to have this conversation. There is a spy in our ranks.” He sighed. “I fear that there are several, in fact.”

Without being asked, Minerva sat herself in one of the chairs opposite Albus. “Is there anyone that you can trust for sure?”

“A few, but I won’t speak their names and ask you to remain silent. I know that you have been doing work for the aurors.”

That was useful information in itself, and Minerva wondered whether to pass it up the chain to Ridgebit. The Aurora Aurea was not exactly a priority for the DMLE, not while they were fellow (albeit _unauthorized_ ) combatants in the Death Eater insurgency, but Minerva and Ridgebit had long suspected that Albus had an auror or two working for him and the confirmation of that fact could be important. If Albus’ suspicions were correct and the Death Eaters had wormed their way into his vigilante group, then that made it more likely that the DMLE had been infiltrated as well.

“What do you need to talk about, then?”

“Ah, Minerva, as to the point as ever.” Slowly, Albus drew himself out from his chair, then retrieved a pensieve from his innumerable shelves. Its contents glistened and glowed as only the stuff of memories could. “I want to show you something of what I saw in a Wizengamot meeting two weeks ago.”

“The Otterburn Inquiry.”

Albus nodded. “In short, I fear that the loosed dragon will have been the least of our troubles.”

Together, they leaned over the pensieve, and Minerva’s thoughts and perceptions fell forward, down into the events of two weeks past.

All fifty members of the Wizengamot were present, dressed in plum or black and assembled in a half-circle of colosseum seating. On either end, the elevated seats were flanked by more level seating. These two sections, set aside for anyone who had been called to speak before the Wizengamot, were surrounded by a sort of low wall, as though they were meant to be penned in.

Millicent Bagnold stood and, with the tip of her wand at her throat, spoke in a voice both sonorous and _sonorus_ : “Inquiry into the events of the fourteenth of April, in muggle London, conducted on the twenty-ninth of April. Interrogators: Millicent Montague Bagnold, Minister for Magic; Bartemius Chariton Crouch, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, and the residue of the Wizengamot, appointed, elected, and hereditary, et cetera, et cetera.”

Minerva had never been present for a formal inquiry, but she knew that there was an order for things in such a situation as this, when something had gone desperately wrong in Britain and the Wizengamot wanted to get to the bottom of it or at least figure out how to best offload the blame. Every member of the Wizengamot could call for the presence of a specific number of witnesses—typically three, but a simple majority could always adjust that—and also had a given span of time to divide among as many witnesses as they desired—out of an allotment of forty minutes, say, twenty might be spent on one witness and fifteen on a second, with a remainder of five minutes to expend in the spitfire questioning of any other witnesses who seemed relevant.

Due to these constraints, it was as important to coordinate on the calling and questioning of witnesses as for any other political machination.

“For the sake of the record,” Bagnold continued, “I ask that Leta Dodderidge, Senior Undersecretary to the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, explain the incident in question, as succinctly as possible.”

“At about six o’clock on the fourteenth of April, a rogue dragon was let loose in muggle London, resulting in the deaths of eleven witches and wizards, an unknown number of breaches of the Statute of Secrecy, and widespread property damage and a significant loss of muggle life.”

“Thank you. Now, you said ‘let loose.’ Could you elaborate?”

“On the fourteenth of April, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement learned of a pair of dragon poachers, Bathilda Grimm and Miguelángel Zubizarreta, who were hiding out in muggle London as they prepared to transfer their contraband to an unknown buyer or buyers outside Britain. Hit wizards were dispatched within the hour, but the information was faulty: there was no indication that the poachers had in their possession a live and active subadult dragon, or that, in order to keep a low profile, said dragon’s only containment was linked to the very ward network which the hit wizards had compromised in order to infiltrate the premises undetected. The dragon escaped within three minutes of their entry.”

“Thank you. I give the floor to Icarus Shacklebolt for questioning.”

Icarus rose from his seat. “I call on Melinda Brunlow, from the Department for the Regulation of Magical Creatures.”

From the lower stands emerged a tall, brown-haired woman whose face, much like Albus’ now, bore every sign that she was currently overusing Pepper-Up Potions: sallow, dry, and sunken.

“What is your exact position within the Department?”

“Dragon Research and Restraint Bureau. We all do a little bit of everything, but officially, my role is Compliance and Assurance.”

“You were on the scene immediately following the dragon’s death, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What breed of dragon was this, exactly?”

“Ukrainian ironbelly.”

“That dragon is not native to Britain, is it?”

“It is not, sir.”

“Why were dragon poachers moving a foreign dragon _out_ of the country?”

“It was in the possession of one Rubeus Hagrid—and before you ask, no, he did not have a permit.”

“I imagine that very few people do.”

“Well, the goblins coordinate with us for the theoretical possession of dragons, but yes, we don’t really hand out dragon permits elsewise. Britain is too small for ranching. Nowadays, it’s almost too small for the few dragons that we keep on a reservation.”

 _(“_ Theoretical possession?” asked Minerva, and the memory froze long enough for Albus to respond: “Gringotts believes that it is better, or at least less costly, for no one to know for sure how many dragons they have. The reality of one dragon and the threat of nine more that haven’t yet been seen is cheaper than the reality of ten”.)

“How did Rubeus Hagrid get this dragon into the country?” asked Shacklebolt.

“He didn’t, sir. He got it from someone else, apparently, a witch named Maureen Fenwick.”

Shacklebolt sighed. “And how did _she_ obtain the dragon?”

“We aren’t sure.”

“Thank you. I call on Leta Dodderidge. Unless I am gravely mistaken, there is no one by the name of Fenwick here today, but it is also my understanding that there is no ongoing effort to apprehend her. Please describe the situation as you know it.”

“Maureen Fenwick is dead. There was a brief correspondence between the Ministry and the Norwegian-Danish government nine years ago on the matter of her death, which was uncovered during our investigation and followed up on. Her remains were found on a reservation for Norwegian ridgebacks, not far from a nesting mother. After further consultation with Norway-Denmark, it is our combined belief that Fenwick was a poacher and was killed in the process of stealing additional eggs.”

“Fitting. Now, how did your department come to know when and where to strike?”

“We received a tip from the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures,” Dodderidge said, with a scathing glance toward the witness section. “We received it with very little notice, and did not have sufficient time to verify the particulars, which, as we now know, were riddled with errors.”

“Thank you. I relinquish the floor, Minister Bagnold.”

(“You don’t happen to—,” started Minerva, and Albus nodded. “Silas Otterburn,” he said. “It is Otterburn’s position that his department passed on all the appropriate information a week earlier than Dodderidge claims and the DMLE merely mishandled or misfiled it, and they have documentation to this effect. The Wizengamot hasn’t decided yet who is lying.”

“If either of them is lying,” Minerva said.

Albus smiled sadly. “I have no doubt that both parties think themselves to be earnest.”)

The memory sped up. Figures moved about with blurring speed, both witnesses and members of the Wizengamot, till all at once the scene returned to normal. Brunlow had been called forward again, this time to be questioned by Crispin Hawkworth, one of those pure-bloods who had shifted closer to Riddle’s camp over the past few years—perhaps because of her family’s failing fortunes, or because of what Riddle had to say on “undue mugglish influences.”

“The Ukrainian ironbelly is the largest of the dragons, is it not?” asked Hawkworth.

“It is, ma’am.”

Hawkwork nodded. “And how large do ironbellies get, exactly?”

“The ironbelly can reach six tons in weight, with a length up to twenty meters, including the tail, and a wingspan of fourteen meters.” As she stood there, reeling off trivia like it was a night at the pub, Brunlow looked more confident than Minerva had seen her at any earlier point.

“And how hot are its flames?” she asked.

“The ironbelly’s flames can reach in excess of nearly two thousand degrees.”

“That is extraordinarily high. I’m not sure that any of these esteemed members of the Wizengamot deal with such numbers on a regular basis. None of us work a forge. Could you put that figure in terms that my peers and I might better understand?”

“At these temperatures,” Brunlow explained, with an assured smile, “iron melts and lead boils.”

“So, in your estimation, the ironbelly is not a suitable pet.”

Brunlow chuckled. “With all due respect, ma’am, _no_ dragon is.”

“And just what is the usual sentence for the illegal possession of a dragon?”

“Ten to fifteen years in Azkaban,” Brunlow said, and then, with a twitch of nervousness, “though, of course, that’s a matter for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

“Of course it is,” agreed Hawkworh. “Thank you. I have no further questions. I relinquish the floor.”

("You may be relieved to know that Hagrid’s sentence was commuted to five years," Albus said.)

The scene around them blurred and shifted again, and then others were present on the floor for questioning: Horatio Abbot, and another Ministry worker, whose name must have been given before the memory slowed.

“Is it true that the culprit responsible for this entire affair is employed by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures?”

“He _was_. My understanding is that Rubeus Hagrid was sacked yesterday,” the man answered. His tone was self-satisfied, and even aggrandizing, as though Hagrid had committed mass murder in cold blood and Brunlow had personally captured him, not seen the paperwork for his dismissal as it passed by on someone else’s desk. It made Minerva want to transfigure her into a newt.

“Thank you. I call on Cornelius Fudge. I have been informed that the Department of Magical Accidents and Catastrophes has put together a full list of the dead. Might we have that read out and entered into the permanent record of the Wizengamot?”

Fudge visibly quailed. “I don’t think—”

“Frankly, it does not matter what, or even if, you think. _Read the names_. If you do not have a list on hand then a copy may be provided for you.”

“No, no, that won’t be necessary,” Fudge said, one hand scrambling in a pocket. “Ah, Algernon Longbottom, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Longbottom. Lord Abraxas Malfoy, of the Noble House of Malfoy. Lord Tiberius Ogden, of the Noble House of Ogden. Lobelia Towler and Didacus Vane, the hit wizards who were originally on the scene, and the poachers, Grimm and Zubizarreta. Additionally, Amos Diggory, Selena Duffy, Walden Macnair, Michael Quirke, and Gemma Trubshawe, all of whom answered the call to contain the beast, and Xanthus Cuffe, who was simply unfortunate enough to be nearby when the dragon broke free. Finally, there were one thousand, five hundred and twenty muggles who died, most of them from the fires, and twenty-three hundred more who—”

“That must be very sad for the muggles, but I don’t think that I asked about them,” Hawkworth said, with a tone that suggested she might have shrugged had it been appropriate in an assembly so hallowed as this. “I have no further questions. I relinquish the floor.”

The next member of the Wizengamot to speak was Riddle, elected representative to the Wizengamot for the Welsh—for a decade and a half, if Minerva recalled correctly—and perennial thorn in the side of four Ministers from Leech to Bagnold. Today, his leanness struck Minerva as the leanness of a sighthound, and his fingers, long and thin, seemed like the legs of a jumping spider. “Minister Bagnold, with such an extensive loss of life, I am wondering what cover story the Ministry supplied to the muggle public, exactly.”

Bagnold took a deep breath, as if she had been fearing this very line of questioning but had prepared herself for it anyway. “Of course you are. I cede my place on the floor to Silenus Otterburn, Chair for the Office of Misinformation under the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures.”

“Yes, thank you, um,” rambled Otterburn, whose robes gave an excellent impression of the term “ruffled feathers” as made manifest in cloth. “The, ah, destruction wrought was the work of muggle terrorists, called the, um, Irish Republican Army, who used, ah, let me see…” Otterburn tapped his desk nervously while sheets of parchment folded themselves and moved out of the way. “...Who used ‘thermobaric and chemical weapons’ in combination with each other, yes, that’s right.”

“Thermobaric? That sounds Greek. From _thermos_ and _baros_ , I assume. It’s something about heat and pressure, then? Like a dust explosion that one might encounter in a flour mill or in a poorly-tended potions laboratory, I expect.”

Otterburn glanced down at his notes again. “Yes, exactly so,” he answered.

“And these chemical weapons that you mentioned, how do they play into the Ministry’s official explanation?”

“I, ah, you see…” Otterburn stammered, before an assistant leaned over and whispered something in his ear. “Something which the muggles called a ‘nerve gas.’ These are, um, organic chemicals which can have all kinds of effects. In this case, we’re saying that the nerve gas had caused hallucinations.”

“In order to account for any muggles whom the obliviators could not reach, I presume,” said Riddle, and Otterburn nodded happily. “And the muggles believed this story, did they?”

“Yes. All the reports say that they swallowed it right down,” Otterburn answered brightly.

Riddle pressed the tips of his fingers together, very lightly, as if in thought. “Please forgive me for straying away from the topic at hand, but I was wondering: are muggles so stupid that they will believe fantastic tales without any evidence, or is the official explanation credible to them because it is in fact possible for a few rogue elements in the muggle world to cause such destruction?”

“It is, ah, theoretically possible, but I wish to stress that no such--”

“ _Then what are we doing_ ,” Riddle said, speaking loudly over Otterburn, “to protect our own communities from collateral damage? Is the Irish Republican Army not an actual organization that the muggles are, at this very instant, engaged in fighting?”

“Mister Riddle, we have indeed strayed from the—“

“Diagon Alley and its auxiliaries are still in danger!” Riddle shouted, as the discontent of the Wizengamot grew audible. “Precautionary measures must be taken _immediately_!”

“Order, order!” roared Minister Bagnold, but the clamor had grown so loud that Minerva could hardly hear her, and then Minerva wasn’t in the Wizengamot anymore.

Albus stepped away from the pensieve and, taking his seat, finished what was left of his third mug of Pepper-Up. “You saw that no one could account for the dragon’s provenance, and that the trail ran cold after the next link in the chain turned out to be dead, just as no one could verify when the tip was given and in what form,” he said.

“I did,” Minerva replied, and then, because she could recognize a cue when she heard one, she added, “You’ve discovered something since then.”

“Indeed.” He frowned. “Fenwick did not simply die nine years ago. She died a month after her meeting with Hagrid, during the brooding season. Her body was burnt beyond easy recognition, and the story never made it back here until now, but the Norwegian-Danes had stored some of her remains and, with British help, identified them as Fenwick’s. It was a very difficult task, according to Dodderidge. Had Fenwick’s teeth been more damaged, it might have been totally impossible.”

“Merlin’s beard.”

“There is one fact which stands out to me: besides the burns—the, if you will, partial cremation—there was no other other damage. Brooding dragons fast for the entire period that they are guarding their eggs, and it is a well-documented fact that a furious mother will take advantage of any free meals that happen to arise in the process of defending her nest. On the other hand, a well-cast _incendio_ can produce damage which is indistinguishable from dragon fire…”

“Merlin’s beard,” Minerva said again, because it was still appropriate. “And you think the Death Eaters are responsible.”

“I do not have any evidence which would stand up in the Wizengamot, but consider the following scenario: Maureen Fenwick, working either in full knowledge and possession of her own will, or under the Imperius Curse, sold the egg to Rubeus Hagrid, and then died soon after, conveniently preventing a future investigation from discovering her source. After the dragon was nearly full-grown, two dragon poachers were told where to find the dragon, and, after the theft was accomplished, hit wizards were told where to find _them_ , but not that there was a large dragon present.” Albus frowned. “And then there is the matter of the dragon itself: Shacklebolt was correct to ask why a foreign dragon was being smuggled out of the country rather than into it, but there is at least one place where such a dragon could be acquired.”

“The goblins!”

Albus nodded. “I doubt that any witch or wizard knows how many ironbellies they have, but the goblins certainly have at least two, which is all that one would need to get one _egg_. That may be the most troubling part of the affair.”

“If the goblins didn’t approve of what Riddle had done, then they would have sold him out by now.”

“Perhaps. They might have judged it to not be worth the trouble. We really don’t know what kind of deals they’ve made, what Riddle has promised or what they’ve demanded.”

“But it’s more likely than not.”

“It appears that way.”

“And you definitely think that it’s Riddle?”

“I do, for two reasons. The first is that he and his allies comported themselves too well, and this benefits them too much. There is, of course, always a certain amount of strategy in these inquiries, but none of the dead could be counted among his followers, and if we tallied up the resignations which have come and are yet to come, I am sure that this, too, will be to his advantage. This is circumstantial, however. What is more concerning is the second thing.”

Albus waved his hand, and another mug of Pepper-Up appeared, nestled comfortably in his fingers. He took another drink before continuing. “There is a friend of mine who works in the Department of Mysteries.”

“An Unspeakable?”

“Even so. I cannot give you her name, as I’m sure you’re aware, but I can assure you that she really is just a friend, and has nothing at all to do with the Aurora Aureum. Nevertheless.” Albus drank again, longer this time, even though (or perhaps because), at four mugs, the additional effect must have been minimal. “Nevertheless, she came to me. The Ministry, of course, was evacuated as soon as it was discovered that a dragon was loose, and my friend was forced to leave before she could turn off an experiment of hers.

“Among other things, what she was doing—the particulars of which I once again cannot describe—gave her a record of the comings and goings in the Department, and what she found was that, scarcely five minutes after the headcount had been performed and every member of the Department had been accounted for, wizards came through the main entrance: Augustus Rookwood, a foreigner by the name of Lukas Zarkoff, and Tom Riddle. They remained for seventy-four minutes.”

“What was he doing down there?“

“I don’t know. It may be dangerous even to guess, in case that closes my mind to other possibilities. The most troubling thing, however, is that, while three wizards went in, only two came out.”

“The missing one being, of course, Lukas Zarkoff, who was, presumably, the sort of person whom no one would miss or, if they did miss him, connect to Britain.”

“Precisely.”

“And then your friend, seeing this, came to you about it.”

“Well, first she destroyed the record, and then shut down the experiment without any preparation, which set her project back for months—this is why she left it running in the first place, you understand—but, crucially, gave the impression that it had not been in operation during Riddle’s visit, given that it had clearly been shut down quickly—too quickly, my friend would say—when the order came to evacuate. _Then s_ he came to me.”

Minerva considered this. “Has anyone taken an inventory at the Department since then?”

“It is part of the standard procedure following any evacuation, though nothing like this has happened for a very long time. It appears, however, that nothing was stolen.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about Riddle acquiring a Time-Turner. One hopes.”

“Indeed, The Department of Mysteries, though tolerant enough of Riddle—and his willingness to unfetter their budget and remove Ministry oversight—to permit their Wizengamot’s representative to support him both personally and politically, are not so cozy that we need worry about _Time-Turners_ in the hands of the Death Eaters. Not yet.”

“If he wasn’t taking something, then he was _doing_ something,” Minerva insisted. “Something which left Zarkoff dead.” A thought occurred to her. “Does your friend know whether Zarkoff’s body was brought out?”

“I didn’t ask, but I would wager that they didn’t stow him in a closet like…” He trailed off.

“Albus?”

“I am afraid that I cannot speak further.”

“Albus!”

Albus shook his head. “Truly, I cannot say. I will not burden you with the need to withhold information from your superiors, but what I know cannot be shared with them. Ergo, it cannot be shared with you.”

Minerva glowered at him, but it was no use. The man liked to portray himself as warm, but he could be as hard as ice when he needed to be, and it would take stronger stuff than Minerva to unnerve the man who’d conquered Grindelwald.

“Very well, then. I’ll take my leave,” she said, getting up.

“Don’t neglect the raspberry twists,” Albus said cheerily, and without a further glance in his direction she took an angry handful of thin, braided pastries and departed.

Albus liked his twists crunchy, and they snapped cleanly in Minerva’s hand—crack, crack, _crack_ —as she walked. That wild, conceited man, who did he think he was? If he wanted to direct a war effort, then he should have gotten himself elected Minister, but instead he was running an off-the-books paramilitary organization at the same time he was running a Merlin-cursed school, and to top it all off…

Well, that’s what Minerva was really angry about, wasn’t it? Off-the-books paramilitary organizations had their uses, after all. Deniability, and all that. She served a similar purpose, really, working for the Ministry without being on the rolls. But he was keeping something from her. From the Ministry.

It was something to do with Nimue’s Veil. That much was obvious. Zarkoff’s body hadn’t been removed, because Riddle had thrown him through the Veil. If it had been something else, Minerva didn’t know what it might be, and Albus would have known that, and would have had no reason to end the discussion.

He had to have known, too, though, that she’d understand that Riddle had gone there for the Veil. She was already piecing it together when he clammed up. No, it couldn’t be that, which meant there was something else at play here, something more than just the Veil.

But for the life of her, Minerva couldn’t figure it out.

**Author's Note:**

> In canon, Minerva McGonagall was an informant for the Ministry of Magic rather than a member of the Order of the Phoenix, and I don’t see why that’d change. Her contact in the DMLE, Ridgebit, is not Harvey Ridgebit the dragonologist, but they are related.
> 
> Bartemius Chariton Crouch takes his middle name from his mother, Charis Black. It means “grace” or “kindness.”
> 
> Most dragons live on ranches, these days. It’s a sorry fact of the world that sustainable harvesting is crucial to the continued maintenance of all but a few dragon sanctuaries (including, incidentally, the Romanian dragon sanctuary where Charlie Weasley worked). Besides, males are combative and there’s not enough space for all of them anyway, so they might as well be of some use to the rest of their kind, right?
> 
> Canonically, the Veil predates the Ministry, which exists where it does because the Veil was there, and people studied it long before there was a Department of Mysteries (in fact, the Department of Mysteries is able to appoint its own representative to the Wizengamot because, like Hogwarts, it used to be fully autonomous). The Veil’s most famous researcher is Merlin, who eventually undertook to go through and explore the other side. When he failed to return, the legendary stature of Merlin was already so great that people decided he couldn’t have possibly made a mistake in going, and instead must have been sabotaged by his apprentice, Nimue.


End file.
